Travel Site Comparisons
Lots of my posts are influenced by something I get in my reader or email.
I received a message this morning about a site that lets you search through a bunch of travel sites easily. ShermanTravel.com
I’m always looking for an inexpensive trip to the Isle of Man, naturally 
I thought I’d do a quick comparison of a number of travel sites to see what happens.
Please, give me some feedback, let me know what travel sites you like to use and why. If yours isn’t on the list get a price and let’s see how it compares.
I searched each site for the same criteria, PIT to IOM, round-trip, one person, leaving today and coming back in a week. I clipped the initial quote and the final check-out price.
This is just quick, down and dirty look at the quoted price and the final price.
i sampled Cheapoair.com, Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, CheapTickets.com, and Travelation.com
I had never heard of Cheapoair.com before and was pretty excited when I was given a price of just $351!
However, on clicking the book button I was given a different story – the price doubled when the fees and extras were added.
Total – $793.70
Everyone has heard of Expedia.com – it had big ties with Microsoft and is amongst the top travel sites.
Initial price – $1058
Total – $1058.80
I like that they give the total ticket price up front but why does it have to be so much higher than the rest?!
Orbitz.com is another company that has put a lot of money into advertising to become well known.
Initial Price – $833. They do mention the taxes and extras though and quote $981 inc. those.
Total – $1020.31
Initial – $622 (mentions $803 inc extras)
However the total wasn’t as easy to get. I searched the site at least 4 times and each time I got the following message:
“We’re sorry. Due to changes in airline availability, the fare you selected is no longer available. We have adjusted the fares for all affected flights. The fare for your selected trip is now $1214 total…”
It’s not like I took forever to click the book button, I hit it right away – that’s quite a jump 
there!
Travelation.com is another I hadn’t heard of. It produced a pretty good result though.
Initial – $346
Total – $793.20
I guess it’s good to shop around with online travel sites. It’s not always the best known ones that give the lowest prices or best results.
Oh, also if you want to contribute towards a trip you can PayPal to aquayle@gmail.com
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Comments
Few people know EXPEDIA is a scammer
For sure they tried to scam me once and I have evidence of that (http://www.victimsofexpedia.com/mycase.htm ).
There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of complaint about EXPEDIA in websites, blogs, complaint sites. Were all those people cheated /scammed by EXPEDIA? They feel that way. Read their stories: http://www.expedianews.com
Hi, I too had never heard of Travelation, and at this point wish I had not tried them. What showed on the screen at 2 tickets, 193.00 each, plus trip insurance (about $20) has now created charges to my credit card totaling over $596.00. I have been charge $260 for each ticket, not $193. Their are 2 charges for travel services. One for $54 and one for $2, plus the insurance. As for the insurance, I twice moved the selection from yes I want insurance to no thank you. When I had to re-enter some information, it automatically moved back to yes and I didn't catch it. In addition, they do not send a statement showing all of the charges (they bury the notice about their travel fees 3/4's of the way down in their terms of use).
I have canceled the travel insurance, which is thru a 3rd party and I am waiting for Travelation to open this morning to find out why the price difference. I could have purchased the ticket directly from the airline much cheaper than this is costing me!
Hi, I too had never heard of Travelation, and at this point wish I had not tried them. What showed on the screen at 2 tickets, 193.00 each, plus trip insurance (about $20) has now created charges to my credit card totaling over $596.00. I have been charge $260 for each ticket, not $193. Their are 2 charges for travel services. One for $54 and one for $2, plus the insurance. As for the insurance, I twice moved the selection from yes I want insurance to no thank you. When I had to re-enter some information, it automatically moved back to yes and I didn't catch it. In addition, they do not send a statement showing all of the charges (they bury the notice about their travel fees 3/4's of the way down in their terms of use).
I have canceled the travel insurance, which is thru a 3rd party and I am waiting for Travelation to open this morning to find out why the price difference. I could have purchased the ticket directly from the airline much cheaper than this is costing me!
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Dear Sir,
I found your findings very informative, our price appeared to be one of the lowest from all the sites you had displayed. Our base price is listed but next to that has +tax, you can click on this and it will give the taxes and fees for your viewing. However, the outcome is that Cheapoair did have one of the best prices!